Hello Cheap Energy, Hello Brave New World

Forbes ^ | Oct 17 2011 | Mark Gibbs

[Kevmo]

Over on Network World where I’ve had a gig as a columnist for about 18 years, my Backspin column I wrote this week about a power generation system called E-Cat that is to be tested on October 28th .

If you’ve missed the recent brouhaha over the E-Cat (which stands for Energy Catalyzer), you’re missing out on a three ring circus over a technology that will either change everything or change nothing because what is promised is, in theory, power too cheap to be worth metering .

[Kevmo]

The Wright brothers were denied publication in Scientific American because heavier than air flight was too good to be true.

[Kevmo]

As I understand it electricity is applied to nickel and it changes to copper thereby creating large amount of heat. Is that the basic idea behind E-cat?
***I don’t think so. The nickel is in a nano-scale powder that absorbs hydrogen. The hydrogen absorbed into a Nickel lattice (Or Deuterium in a Palladium matrix) causes the hydrogen to act differently than when it’s a free agent. Under pressure and possibly other “catalysts”, hydrogen atoms begin colliding with eachother in the matrix, fusing and generating heat.

That however is not the question. Where does the electricity that starts the catalyst come from and how much is needed?
***Not that much. It was all measured.

Will there be a need for a coal(or nuke)powered generator in order to keep this thing going or is the reaction self sustaining once it gets started?
***The October 6 demo was self sustaining for 3 hours. The aim is for continuous self-sustain mode, which is likely to be hard to reach for a few years.

Sorry for all the basic question but I am not a physicist and I am a long time out of school.
***No prob. This stuff is fascinating. I recommend the Lenr-canr.org website
http://www.lenr-canr.org/

[Kevmo]

You apparently havn’t been around long enough to know that efficiency claims of ESTABLISHED technology is greatly exaggerated, let alone technology no one knows anything about.

***That’s the whole point of LENR. There’s enough energy in a gallon of seawater to match 50 gallons of gasoline. What do I care if it ends up being 2 gallons of seawater instead? If the first Ecats are the size of 2 refrigerators instead of one, that’s no skin off my nose.

[Kevmo]

peoples comments are not meant to mock you.
***If the seagulls were to be honest with you, they would disagree with that statement. Now I realize that’s a Hugh and Series “IF”...

[Kevmo]

. It’s been shown that real smart guys are easier to fool by sleight of hand because they tend to focus too much and miss what the other hand is doing.
***Then show it. Targ & Puthoff weren’t very smart.

Somebody who practices the art of sleight of hand is going to be better at faking it than someone who occasionally finds a fraud is good at finding frauds.
***I agree. But there have been a lot of people inspecting Rossi’s devices. All of them would have had to be stupid for your position to be valid.

Just look at how long it took to find the fraud at IPCC, and they weren’t really good at hiding it.
***Global warming pukes, right? They were awesome at hiding it. What brought them out into the open was that someone hacked their email accounts. They weren’t under even 1/10th the scrutiny that Rossi is. If they were, they would have folded long before.

I hate to say this of a freeper, but you really sound like Al Gore.
***And you sound like... the church lady. She’s always trying to associate her counterpart with someone Evil.

The science on the E-Cat is definitely not settled.
***There’s a high duhh factor to that statement.

The Ni to Cu conversion will produce heat, but whether they found a cheap way to do it is certainly open to question.
***Adding some pressure, a catalyst and some hydrogen? That’s gonna be cheap no matter how you look at it, unless the catalyst is something as hard to produce as antimatter.

[Kevmo]

But I’ll repeat myself for about the fiftieth time.
***No doubt you’ll need to repeat yourself a hundred more times. The average seagull is a slow learner, mostly because of unwillingness rather than lack of capacity.

[Kevmo]

Have you considered starting a technical or E-cat Caucus so you only discuss your interests with like-minded Freepers?
***Such an option is available. I started it on the religion threads when I got sick of all the invective coming from the hardcore science believers. The religion mod was gracious enough to allow that “scientism” had become a religion, and therefore if a religious caucus thread was started under that keyword, it was more heavily moderated. It was a fascinating experiment, mostly positive. The missing element is that basically none of the “scientism” believers wants to acknowledge that their belief is basically a religion. But whenever I want to have a clean discussion on Crevo, it’s available as an option.

[Kevmo]

That’s a fascinating statement of faith.

I’ve been trying to get the skeptical seagulls to put their money where their mouth is and lay down some bets on the outcomes of Rossi’s experiments, but so far all of them have been all hat & no cattle.

I have no doubt you’re in the same category.

[Kevmo]

The best place to get updates is from the horse’s mouth. Rossi answers questions & comments at his Journal(what he calls it)/blog(what the seagulls call it).

http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com

[Kevmo]

..

Thanks for bumping the thread, Seagull

[Kevmo]

His goal, IMHO
***That’s just your opinion. You proceed from it as if it were a fact. But it ain’t a fact. It’s just an opinion.

And all those people he took money from, they would have to be incredibly stupid, knowing that Rossi’s background isn’t extra virgin olive oil fresh, by not looking extra hard at the scientific evidence being claimed. Why do seagulls constantly overlook this particular fact on the ground?

[Kevmo]

ROSSI INTENDS TO DECEIVE YOU, DEAR READER
***Again, just your opinion. Yet you proceed from it as if it were a proven fact.

[Kevmo]

I hope that if Rossi is unmasked as a scammer, that your apology on this forum is as forceful as your current defense of Rossi is.
***I doubt we can count on apologies from the seagulls if it turns out successful.

That’s why I keep trying to lay down bets on this technology. For all the huffin’ and puffin’ and supposed confidence in the outcome, there ain’t no takers yet.

[aruanan]

The Wright brothers were denied publication in Scientific American because heavier than air flight was too good to be true.

There was also a pretty funny rant in Scientific American by a guy claiming that Edison didn't know what he was talking about and needed to go back to school in his claim of producing a dynamo that was more than 50% efficient, that everyone knew it was a law of nature that a dynamo could not be more than 50% efficient. The guy said there would be no way that Edison could ever accomplish what he promised. It was especially funny because at the time this was published Edison already had operating a dynamo that was at least 90% efficient. Here is an extract from Edison, His Life and Inventions, vol 1:

Edison was familiar with the numerous but impracticable and commercially unsuccessful efforts that had been previously made by other inventors and investigators to produce electric light by incandescence, and at the time that he began his experiments, in 1877, almost the whole scientific world had pronounced such an idea as impossible of fulfilment. The leading electricians, physicists, and experts of the period had been studying the subject for more than a quarter of a century, and with but one known exception had proven mathematically and by close reasoning that the ``Subdivision of the Electric Light,'' as it was then termed, was practically beyond attainment. Opinions of this nature have ever been but a stimulus to Edison when he has given deep thought to a subject, and has become impressed with strong convictions of possibility, and in this particular case he was satisfied that the subdivision of the electric light -- or, more correctly, the subdivision of the electric current -- was not only possible but entirely practicable.

The opinions of scientific men of the period on the subject are well represented by the two following extracts -- the first, from a lecture at the Royal United Service Institution, about February, 1879, by Mr. (Sir) W. H. Preece, one of the most eminent electricians in England, who, after discussing the question mathematically, said: ``Hence the sub-division of the light is an absolute ignis fatuus.'' The other extract is from a book written by Paget Higgs, LL.D., D.Sc., published in London in 1879, in which he says: ``Much nonsense has been talked in relation to this subject. Some inventors have claimed the power to `indefinitely divide' the electric current, not knowing or forgetting that such a statement is incompatible with the well-proven law of conservation of energy.''

``Some inventors,'' in the last sentence just quoted, probably -- indeed, we think undoubtedly -- refers to Edison, whose earlier work in electric lighting (1878) had been announced in this country and abroad, and who had then stated boldly his conviction of the practicability of the subdivision of the electrical current. The above extracts are good illustrations, however, of scientific opinions up to the end of 1879, when Mr. Edison's epoch-making invention rendered them entirely untenable.

Commercial possibilities could not exist in the face of such low economy as this, and Mr. Edison realized that he would have to improve the dynamo himself if he wanted a better machine. The scientific world at that time was engaged in a controversy regarding the external and internal resistance of a circuit in which a generator was situated. Discussing the subject Mr. Jehl, in his biographical notes, says: ``While this controversy raged in the scientific papers, and criticism and confusion seemed at its height, Edison and Upton discussed this question very thoroughly, and Edison declared he did not intend to build up a system of distribution in which the external resistance would be equal to the internal resistance. He said he was just about going to do the opposite; he wanted a large external resistance and a low internal one. He said he wanted to sell the energy outside of the station and not waste it in the dynamo and conductors, where it brought no profits.... In these later days, when these ideas of Edison are used as common property, and are applied in every modern system of distribution, it is astonishing to remember that when they were propounded they met with most vehement antagonism from the world at large.''

To a student of to-day all this seems simple, but in those days the art of constructing dynamos was about as dark as air navigation is at present.... Edison also improved the armature by dividing it and the commutator into a far greater number of sections than up to that time had been the practice. He was also the first to use mica in insulating the commutator sections from each other.''

In the mean time, during the progress of the investigations on the dynamo, word had gone out to the world that Edison expected to invent a generator of greater efficiency than any that existed at the time. Again he was assailed and ridiculed by the technical press, for had not the foremost electricians and physicists of Europe and America worked for years on the production of dynamos and arc lamps as they then existed? Even though this young man at Menlo Park had done some wonderful things for telegraphy and telephony; even if he had recorded and reproduced human speech, he had his limitations, and could not upset the settled dictum of science that the internal resistance must equal the external resistance.

Such was the trend of public opinion at the time, but ``after Mr. Kruesi had finished the first practical dynamo, and after Mr. Upton had tested it thoroughly and verified his figures and results several times -- for he also was surprised -- Edison was able to tell the world that he had made a generator giving an efficiency of 90 per cent.'' Ninety per cent. as against 40 per cent, was a mighty hit, and the world would not believe it.

From elsewhere in the book is a description of Edison's discovery of the existence of what is now known to be electromagnetic waves and his use of the phenomenon to transmit messages wirelessly. He antedated Hertz and de Forest. At first he thought he had discovered a new force, which he referred to as "etheric force" because at the time there was no theoretical basis yet in existence to make sense of what he discovered in terms of electricity and, so, he was "pooh-poohed"--looks like there were seagulls way back then:

Although the space between the cars and the pole line was probably not more than about fifty feet, it is interesting to note that in Edison's early experiments at Menlo Park he succeeded in transmitting messages through the air at a distance of 580 feet. Speaking of this and of his other experiments with induction telegraphy by means of kites, communicating from one to the other and thus from the kites to instruments on the earth, Edison said recently: ``We only transmitted about two and one-half miles through the kites. What has always puzzled me since is that I did not think of using the results of my experiments on `etheric force' that I made in 1875. I have never been able to understand how I came to overlook them. If I had made use of my own work I should have had long-distance wireless telegraphy.''

In one of the appendices to this book is given a brief technical account of Edison's investigations of the phenomena which lie at the root of modern wireless or ``space'' telegraphy, and the attention of the reader is directed particularly to the description and quotations there from the famous note-books of Edison's experiments in regard to what he called ``etheric force.'' It will be seen that as early as 1875 Edison detected and studied certain phenomena -- i.e., the production of electrical effects in non-closed circuits, which for a time made him think he was on the trail of a new force, as there was no plausible explanation for them by the then known laws of electricity and magnetism. Later came the magnificent work of Hertz identifying the phenomena as ``electromagnetic waves'' in the ether, and developing a new world of theory and science based upon them and their production by disruptive discharges.

Edison's assertions were treated with scepticism by the scientific world, which was not then ready for the discovery and not sufficiently furnished with corroborative data. It is singular, to say the least, to note how Edison's experiments paralleled and proved in advance those that came later; and even his apparatus such as the ``dark box'' for making the tiny sparks visible (as the waves impinged on the receiver) bears close analogy with similar apparatus employed by Hertz.

Indeed, as Edison sent the dark-box apparatus to the Paris Exposition in 1881, and let Batchelor repeat there the puzzling experiments, it seems by no means unlikely that, either directly or on the report of some friend, Hertz may thus have received from Edison a most valuable suggestion, the inventor aiding the physicist in opening up a wonderful new realm. In this connection, indeed, it is very interesting to quote two great authorities. In May, 1889, at a meeting of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in London, Dr. (now Sir) Oliver Lodge remarked in a discussion on a paper of his own on lightning conductors, embracing the Hertzian waves in its treatment: ``Many of the effects I have shown -- sparks in unsuspected places and other things -- have been observed before. Henry observed things of the kind and Edison noticed some curious phenomena, and said it was not electricity but `etheric force' that caused these sparks; and the matter was rather pooh-poohed. It was a small part of this very thing; only the time was not ripe; theoretical knowledge was not ready for it.''

Again in his ``Signalling without Wires,'' in giving the history of the coherer principle, Lodge remarks: ``Sparks identical in all respects with those discovered by Hertz had been seen in recent times both by Edison and by Sylvanus Thompson, being styled `etheric force' by the former; but their theoretic significance had not been perceived, and they were somewhat sceptically regarded.'' During the same discussion in London, in 1889, Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), after citing some experiments by Faraday with his insulated cage at the Royal Institution, said: ``His (Faraday's) attention was not directed to look for Hertz sparks, or probably he might have found them in the interior. Edison seems to have noticed something of the kind in what he called `etheric force.' His name `etheric' may thirteen years ago have seemed to many people absurd. But now we are all beginning to call these inductive phenomena `etheric.' ``With which testimony from the great Kelvin as to his priority in determining the vital fact, and with the evidence that as early as 1875 he built apparatus that demonstrated the fact, Edison is probably quite content.

It should perhaps be noted at this point that a curious effect observed at the laboratory was shown in connection with Edison lamps at the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1884. It became known in scientific parlance as the ``Edison effect,'' showing a curious current condition or discharge in the vacuum of the bulb. It has since been employed by Fleming in England and De Forest in this country, and others, as the basis for wireless-telegraph apparatus. It is in reality a minute rectifier of alternating current, and analogous to those which have since been made on a large scale.

[Kevmo]

a good read

thanks

[WestwardHo]

Why do you hate seagulls? Now starlings, I can understand hating starlings......

[calex59]

Thanks for the info. Here’s hoping nuke fusion is at last possible and that we may see the end of the oil cartels:)

[Kevmo]

STARLINGS

Riding with my family in a ‘58 Buick
I can still recall
How we’d drive through the valley
To my Grandmother’s house
Every summer vacation
When I was small
And I’d gaze out the window
At the farms and the orchards
And the sound of our motor
Would frighten the starlings
And they’d rise from the fields to fly

My mother would grumble
“Those birds are a curse
They’re a thorn in the farmers” side
But I couldn’t help feeling sad and inspired
By their desperate ballet in the sky

Chorus
Say a prayer for the starlings
A hot, dry wind beats their ragged wings
Have a thought for the starlings
No one ever listens to the songs they sing
Say a prayer for the starlings
There’s no welcome for them anywhere
Leave some crumbs for the starlings
They say that Winter will be cold this year

She was sitting on a curb by the Seven Eleven®
She asked if I had some spare change
Her skin wore that leathered and windburned look
And the light in her blue eyes was wild and strange
I sat down beside her and asked her her name
She said, “pick one you like, I need something to eat”
And her life made me think
Of the dead leaves in Autumn
Drifting like ghosts down the street

Is the life that we celebrate only a dream
A lie that we serve like a god made of stone
And our hearts are the hunter
Birds with no nesting place
Weary and aching for home

Chorus

Written By Randy Stonehill
© 1989 Stonehillian Music/Word Music (a div. of Word, Inc.)/ASCAP

[aNYCguy]

Combustible rocks were doubted for many centuries ~ and finally coal was demonstrated to be quite combustible.

You know what I like about you, Muawiyah? You never let your ignorance of science or history get in the way of your expounding on science or history. Or the humanities, foreign affairs, obscure and probably incorrect minutiae of dead languages you just read about on Wikipedia, etc.

And it makes me smile. I read this little head scratcher of yours three times and enjoyed it every time.

[Wonder Warthog]

"For someone who claims to have a doctorate in Chemical Engineering, you sure are accepting of someone who falsely claims academic bona fides."

And on this, you are as wrong as you have been on everything that you supposedly have as facts. My doctorate is in CHEMISTRY, not chemical engineering. Your research, your memory, and your assertions are all sloppy.

"I hope that if Rossi is unmasked as a scammer, that your apology on this forum is as forceful as your current defense of Rossi is.

And I note that you have provided no links to your assertions that Rossi has been funded by Ampenergo. Why is it that, when asked to back up your assertions, no evidence is forthcoming.

Good-BYE!